Wednesday, March 23, 2011

From the gassed trenches of the first world war, to the apocalyptic behavior of all sides during the second world war, killing fields, prison abuses, and now this. Photographs surfacing in one of Germany's most popular magazines, Spiegel (Mirror), of U.S. Troops treating the bodies of what appears to be civilians as though they are trophy game.

This article is a continuation, expansion, and explanation of remarks that I have made on Facebook recently where two of my most intelligent friends have weighed in with their comments and opinions as well. Original thread is here.

For those who didn't read it, or cannot access it, the gist of my original comment is that most Americans have some kind of "hard on" for "supporting our troops" especially where the ones that I have to deal with on a daily basis in the backwaters of the Mid-West are just the types to do the kind of taking of a trophy that these soldiers have done.

Although I can only give anecdotal evidence, and my reasoning is sketchy at best due to this, this however is my personal opinion of who, what, and why this shit has happened among those who call themselves "professional" soldiers.

The first friend of mine pointed out that the perpetrators of these atrocities that have been recently published are rogue elements within the U.S. Military. The second friend of mine questioned my translation abilities, and thus my intelligence in the process of questioning. I only take slight offense to that. We remain friends, at least from my side anyway.

So let the shit storm of my opinion begin.

I have had two recent dealings with people from the U.S. Army that have simultaneously left a bad taste in my mouth from their swinging their cocks around, and quite possibly hope for those military professionals who have to deal with their antics. Before that was over ten years ago when I was working for a military contractor that primarily hired former military servicemen due to their technical expertise. Those guys acted with disdain for civilians also and they were retired military leaders.

Working in backward chronological order, here are the accounts:

The fall of 2010.
I was a hotel clerk at a local place of lodging where the U.S. Military chose to bring temporary overflow recruits to stay. There weren't enough bunks on post for these guys, so they brought them to us for three days until they could clear enough bunks in the barracks for them.

During their stay, some twenty or thirty young men partied hard at night at the local bar around the corner, as well as in their rooms, at night, and were up at the crack of dawn to travel the thirty miles to the local Army post for various forms of training (I am of the understanding that they had graduated from basic training, and were learning their military specialties. They could be considered "professional" soldiers by this time).

There were two incidents during their stay. First, on the first night of their stay, a couple of servicemen got into a yelling and threatening match with a couple of Hispanics who were staying at the motel. It was a loud obnoxious clusterfuck of people telling people that they were gonna kick asses, and others to shut the fuck up.

The next night, one of the soldiers got so drunk that he put his head through the wall. Or so that's how they tell it to the local law enforcement who I had to deal with over the matter. The one that did this was one of the ones picking fights the previous night.

The police officer explained to me that being in the Reserves himself, that they "take care of their own". This gave me some hope that maybe this vainglorious sociopath who put his head through the wall of my motel would be greeted in the night by a sleeping bag party. The officer implied that I need not press charges. I wished all the shit would have just gone away, but I had to tell the officer, my being a representative of the owner of the establishment, that charges would have to be pressed.

The soldier was removed from the scene in handcuffs to return two hours later escorted by his commander. I guess that's how they take care of their own, by coddling their brat children.

So there is that.

Spring or Summer of 2010 (I can't recall the exact season, but it was last year or so).

I was in the middle of litigation over custody rights to my son who had been legally kidnapped from me (yes, with a $12,000-$50,000 ransom and all, to be paid to my attorney before he would even begin thinking about fighting for my rights in what he described as a losing battle...but I digress).

I happened to be drinking my sorrows away at the very same local bar that appears in the above story.

My estimate of the number of Military personnel in the bar at the time is something like five to ten (I mention these numbers because I am going to try to make a point with them later).

One of them was acting like the "cock of the walk" in the bar because he had just returned from Iraq, and oh, he was somehow injured. Another was his commander who happened to be sitting next to me, and remarked to "just ignore that guy, he's stupid, and not like us".

The commander seemed to have a good head on his shoulders, and I was feeling pitiful about my experience with the legal system recently so I asked him if he realized that he was fighting for the rights of some fuckin homosexual bankers to kidnap my son. (yes, Patrick, if you are reading this, I have a lot of problems with how all this shit worked out. I will still be civil to you and your partner, however, primarily because I believe that it is my son's best interest to know his true father...but I digress)

In this instance, it wasn't the overt actions of the dipshit that was bragging having been to war, but the bizarre response that I got from the commander, the one with the good head on his shoulders, that troubled me. He wanted to know where these guys lived, the ones who had my son, as though he were going to personally go rain revenge on them for me. I just said that they lived out east and kind of extracted myself from the conversation after accepting a shot of cinnamon whiskey from the guy.

Finally, in 1998, I went to work for a military contractor for about six months. The longest I could stand being around these types on a daily basis. I was a multimedia illustrator for them. The office populated by about ten former soldiers, and four civilians including myself. That's not even mentioning the people out of the office I had to deal with, many of whom were former military too.

The range of personalities in this sampling are thus: One, my immediate supervisor was a former Master Sargent. Ok fella, been out long enough to deal with civilian life in a relatively productive way, etc. However his quirks were he was a self admitted sex harasser, racist, and just generally liked to start shit. Said that he liked to say things to others to get their goad. Three of them were old school military in that they had been out long enough to treat life with some humility, pretty much considered themselves civilians in their own right, and were generally nice guys. Two of the guys were like shadows in that I nearly forgot about mentioning them, one was so in the woodwork probably because he was a minority who got treated like shit in the service much like his office team treated him in civilian life. Two of the guys were spastic chain smokers (I can't fault them for chain smoking tho) that had such huge egos they would make these incredible comments and bizarre jokes involving the bathroom, and biological warfare. One was Hispanic, and had worked for INS, or some military version of it, border patrol, I recall (a traitor to his own people in my eyes, but that would be racist of me now wouldn't it). And finally the office manager was a former tank commander, very quiet, and very imposing.

So the setup has been made, here are the punchlines:

I was the only male of the four civilians. I asked our secretary once what it was about military guys that women liked. She replied, that it was "what they can do".

I am of the assumption that they have the ability to kill without remorse and that's what she was talking about, I guess.

The immediate supervisor wrote a training manual for us who were working on multimedia illustration. In the manual it basically said that it took no training to do what the fuck I was trained to do. By a university. for FOUR YEARS DAMMIT. So you can see that the guy had enough disdain for civilians to write such a statement and his trick of getting others goad, well it worked.

During a liquid lunch, one of the former military guys from another office said with enough hatred that he might as well have told me to fuck off, something on the order of "what do you know, college boy?"

This is just a few of the things that I had to deal with during my six month stint of working for a military contractor.

So there is that.

I have had some other dealings with military people over the years, and yes there are stories to tell of them too, but for the sake of space, and not boring you, reader, I am going to just leave it as these three.

So, let's look a little bit at the numbers. In the first story, there were something like 2 in 25 that were overt assholes. The second story, two in seven. The third, say, five in eleven. You could call it something like eight in forty are Inglourious Basterds. Or one in five.

WTF? I ask! for every five military personnel, there is one in that group who might do the things that are described by the photos in Spiegel. Consider grouping phenomenon and you can extrapolate that one in five units of however many guys are on a team (say eight) would do such atrocities where there is a unanimous agreement in the unit. Just saying, ya know.

What else can I say about the military? There has not been a draft since (if my history is correct, and it does not matter if it's perfect anyway the estimate is still good) 1975. That means that the men and women of our armed forces are choosing a life of killing and putting their lives at risk. I know the argument coming at this statement is that there are huge incentives to join, education, monetary gain, glory, ten percent off meals for the military by the civilians who have a hard on for them and etc.

I guess what I am asking is WHY THE FUCK ARE WE REWARDING MURDEROUS SOCIOPATHS? These men and women from Abu Ghraib to Afghanistan are treating other human beings, combatants or civilians, like animals, like their prey. They take trophies and mutilate corpses for fun and profit while this author cannot find morally upstanding and creative work to feed himself or his family, and back home the bankers take his son away.